Privacy groups slam US passport technology

Privacy advocates took the US government to task last week for the government’s plans to add a wireless chips to next-generation passports.

The concerns focus on the US government’s initiative to create machine-readable passports that will be rolled out to the diplomatic corps this year and to the general public starting in 2006. Privacy and security experts criticized the move as ill-considered, saying that the technology would leak data to those with specialized equipment, allowing Americans to be automatically identified by the passports they are carrying.